App note: Benefits and pitfalls of aluminum electrolytic capacitors

A video tutorial on the benefits and pitfalls of using aluminum electrolytic capacitors. Learn how these capacitors degrade, and how their life cycle is proportional to the stresses you put them through.

Don’t forget that not all caps are created equal so the prototype that works with really nice high-current rated name brand caps might just explode into a sticky mess when builty with Shenzen-special caps.

Don’t be too happy with your “high-current rated name brand caps”. I’ve replaced one of those (a 1000uF low-ESR slim radial) in a 4yr old PC PSU — it was sitting too close to the heat sinks or hot air flow. Went down to 280uF with a bulging top. Derate a good cap in those conditions, and it will turn out to have roughly run out its lifetime. I suspect many of us who wield soldering irons have done the replace-the-bulging-caps routine many times…